The ‘80s and early ‘90s had been filled with interracial buddy comedies within the motion style. Starting with 48 HRS. in 1982, Hollywood was churning out such films, typically paring Caucasian and African-American male leads struggling to see eye-to-eye whereas coping with a bigger drawback. Amos & Andrew was no exception with the casting of its stars, Nicolas Cage and Samuel L. Jackson. On the time of its manufacturing, Cage had a popularity for portraying eccentric comedic roles in classics resembling Moonstruck, Honeymoon in Vegas, and Elevating Arizona. Equally, Jackson was a gentle character actor whose face turned more and more acquainted to audiences by showing in Spike Lee’s initiatives and supporting roles in Coming to America and Strictly Business. Each actors had been hardly the field workplace attracts they’d turn into later within the decade. But, they’d the expertise to play societal opposites of one another on this racially charged comedy.
What Is ‘Amos & Andrew’ About?
The title seemingly takes inspiration from the Black radio present Amos ‘n’ Andy, a highly controversial comedy radio show later tailored to tv that includes two
Black males depicted as insensitive stereotypes. Such characters are the exact opposite of Jackson’s Andrew Sterling, a profitable New York playwright infamous for his views about white America. Whereas Andrew settles into his new resort dwelling on a Massachusetts resort island, his white liberal neighbors (Michael Lerner and Margaret Colin) suspect him as a house invader and name the native police. A military-sized swarm of cops descends across the dwelling, adopted by large gunfire.
With Andrew holed up in the home, the native Chief (Dabney Coleman) realizes his mistake when the police study of his identification, whereas the descending media retailers trigger undesirable publicity. To save lots of his popularity, the Chief enlists the assistance of Cage’s imprisoned Amos Odell, a small-time thief with desires of fleeing to Canada. Amos is tasked to interrupt into Andrew’s dwelling, maintain him hostage, and ultimately give up himself in trade for freedom. Issues take a flip when Amos learns his identify and face can be throughout TV, regardless of the Chief’s promise to make him an nameless hostage taker. Because the Chief’s true colours are revealed concerning Andrew taking residence within the majority-white neighborhood, the playwright and the prison kind an unlikely pairing.
‘Amos & Andrew’ Is Extra Than Simply One other Buddy Comedy
Amos & Andrew was launched a yr after the Rodney King verdict and three years after the notorious misfire The Bonfire of the Vanities. Very like the latter film, director E. Max Frye (Something Wild) tries to make a press release about race and sophistication discrepancies in America. He function reverses Jackson as a law-abiding Black male and Cage because the “lowlife” white con man, which mirrors the traditional Sidney Poitier/Tony Curtis film The Defiant Ones by way of chemistry. Whereas the posters and trailers attempt to depict the film as a buddy comedy just like 48 HRS. and Midnight Run, Amos & Andrew spends most of its display screen time on the characters studying about one another.
Associated
Bruce Willis’ Action Comedy ‘Red’ Is Very Different From the DC Comic
Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, and Brian Cox? Signal us up.
All through the film, Jackson typically vents his frustration about coping with racism in a city that’s alleged to be broadly accepted. Then, in essentially the most revealing second of the story, Andrew confides in Amos about his upbringing in Harlem and the way his workaholic father survived in “the white man’s world” by enjoying by their guidelines. But, when his father passes away, not one in all his white co-workers attends the funeral. For all his success as a playwright, Andrew feels nugatory to his neighborhood.
‘Amos & Andrew’ Mirrors Actual-World Racial Profiling Incidents
The place Amos & Andrew falls brief is the over-reliance on sitcom-level sight gags that the abilities of neither Cage nor Jackson had been in a position to overcome. Regardless of its shortcomings, nevertheless, occasions depicted within the film had been eerily forward of their time earlier than 24-hour information networks dominated mass media. Moments resembling an overzealous cop (Brad Dourif) mistaking Andrew’s automotive keys for a weapon echo most tragic police shootings. Moreover, the whole premise of Andrew being profiled in an upper-class neighborhood predated the profiling incident involving black historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. at his dwelling in 2009.
Essentially the most disturbing, but profitable, a part of the film is Coleman enjoying the subtly racist police chief. Having performed misogynist bosses in 9 to 5 and Tootsie, Coleman makes the proper antagonist, keen to govern the scenario by means of the media to protect his picture and his mostly-white neighborhood. Satirically, in a time earlier than cameras on smartphones, his acts of injustice solely get uncovered after a pizza lady delivers a videotape to the media which accommodates the chief’s interview with the white couple about the actual story behind the incident.
Cage’s Amos was the proper alternative to look at how lower-class males are mistreated no matter race. Whereas touched on at factors, it is by no means absolutely as explored as Jackson’s mistreatment. It could not be the final time Jackson performed a racially charged character, as his later roles in Die Hard With a Vengeance and Shaft shared similarities with Andrew Sterling. For all its flaws, Amos & Andrew stays an enchanting a part of the filmographies of Cage and Jackson.
Amos & Andrew is on the market to hire on Prime Video within the U.S.